Thursday, January 26, 2012

Space and Beyond

Listening to the GOP debates and now the back and forth between the candidates can make ones mind numb. Especially since the two main runners are Romney and Newt (yes I feel that Gingrich has made it to the status of a one name superstar). I could go on forever talking about politics and what I feel about each candidate but there was something said today that reconfirms a mindset that I just can't agree with.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's my love for sci-fi. Maybe it's my hope that the world can be a better place and one day the people of earth will see that, like it or not, we are ALL from the same planet.

Newt stated that "in his second term as as president there will be a permanent settlement on the moon, and it will be American".

Avoiding the absurdness of the fact that Newt would have a second term as president, I'm more concerned about this American settlement on the moon. Whether or not we actually NEED this settlement is a different debate that time will tell. What disturbs me is that if we get to the advanced state as to be able to have this permanent settlement and could leave our home rock, Earth, is that we'd still be saddled with antiquated ideals that have held our world apart for at least the last 5000+ years.

I am and always will be a true red, white and blue American. But I also see that our world has become much smaller over the past few decades as technology has brought people from all over the world together. It's amazing to me that in seconds I could be online with people from all over the world. I could jump onto my Xbox and be playing Gears of War with someone from NYC or London or even Iran or China.

I truly believe that as the world becomes smaller, old school war will become a thing of the past. I don't ever think we will have a conflict on the scale and scope of World War 2. We knew very little of what Germany was doing in early 1930. The average person couldn't tell you what countries or providences made up the USSR in the 70's and 80's. Compare that to now, we know when there's the slightest unrest in the middle of an African desert. We might not do anything about it but we know. Twitter and Facebook can topple a corupt regime in Egypt at the same time a lonely man in Calabasas downloads what would normally be illegal porn from his office computer... I mean check soccer scores from the EPL (that's right, whew that was close). Anyway, my point being the world is a much smaller place. I could understand hiding under your desk at school due to the threat of a nuclear attack from a nameless / faceless enemy, but would I go to war with Han from Korea that I play video games with online and who sends me bootleg movies?

How does all this fit into an economic blog? Well, because like it or not, we're in an world economy now. On a day to day basis we feel the affects of what happens in Europe and Asia. We've got 24 hour economic news channels. I can trade stocks all over the world from my iPhone at any time of day. If anything is going to bring the world together it's going to be money.

To have a permanent fixture on the moon would take a massive amount of money. It would also be tremendously risky. What any shrewd person would tell you would be to bring in different groups and spread the risk out. I'd hope that we'd also bring in the best and brightest for such an endeavor and that would mean bringing together people from where ever they may be from.

This is the next step of exploration not just to see who can plant a flag first. The moon already has an American flag. Does that mean we own it? I don't think so. Besides, unfortunately and sadly a corporation will probably claim or be given ownership over anything new that is discovered. More than likely it will be a multi national corporation.

To think that a man who is running for president wants the USA to own the moon scares me. What are we going to do with the moon when we can't even fix the problems we have at home? Or maybe he's thinking of a good place to divorce his 3rd wife and leave her on this moon settlement.

We've learn from the past, that to become great we must work together. A massive undertaking, like living on the moon, is going to take a joint venture. As we are becoming one economy and one society, we certainly shouldn't forget our roots and heritage, but we should put aside old xenophobic fears accept that we need to work together. Instead of an American settlement we should have a human settlement. Believe me, when the aliens come to take us over as slaves or steal Earth's natural resources (the ones we haven't polluted) they won't care which part of the rock we're from.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Lenders / Banks passing the buck.


Well it’s 2012 and this year I promise, or at least one of my goals, is to update you all with the most recent financial and mortgage information with the Bear perspective. The first thing I’ll say is that, thank GOD 2011 is over. 2012 has to be and will be a much better year for all of us. I’m actually excited and encouraged about where the loan industry will go. I don’t think we’ll see to much of a growth or betterment of our economy but there are so many changes that are going on, I can’t help but think one or two might actually help the average consumer.

I can’t say that 2012 is starting off great as far as all you mortgage customers out there. Sure rates are low, and will continue to be low. But I’m going to show you the best example of “the banks will only do what the banks want to do”.

Attached is an actual email that is basically passing the buck to the consumer regarding fees for ALL mortgages. It’s funny that even though they say this increase to rates / fees are due to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac new regulations, the lenders are continently applying this rate / rebate hike to ALL loans. I wonder who’ll pocket that money? HMMMMM?

The funny thing is that this email from Wells Fargo came out Monday and no other lender said anything. This led to may of my piers speculating that maybe this was just a Wells Fargo thing. Which very well could have been the case. But seeing how this is a copy cat business, I knew other lenders would follow suite. Especially since most “lenders” just sell their loans on money lines to Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citibank (just to name some big ones). Sure enough today, Tuesday, I started to get the same emails from even the smallest lender that rates / fees would increase.

About two months ago Obama said in a speech that he was going to push for a loan program that would help everyone, even if they where upside down on what they owed, there would be a mortgage for you. I got call after call for about two weeks asking about the new “Obama” loans. Well, two months later and there still hasn’t been a new loan program that has come out yet.

See, Obama is a politician. Like him or hate him, he’s going to say what he wants to happen. All politicians do this and if a republican had said this, the result would be the same. No one will tell the banks what to do. Sure they’ll take our bailout money but they’re only going to do what they want and if by chance there is a regulation that they have to adhere to such as this increase in GFees, they’re just going to pass it along to the borrower. They’re not going to let something like this stop them from making the same money they’ve always made.